Film Review: Adaptation - Edge of Tomorrow: Live. Die. Repeat.

Fig 1: Poster.

'Edge of Tomorrow: Live. Die. Repeat.' is a 2014  film adaptation of a novel, called 'All You Need Is Kill''. The audience is looking at the story through Major William Cage's eyes (played by Tom Crusie), as he is forced to join the military forces to defeat an alien nation which has invaded Earth. The film is set in the future and is set out to appear as a video game.

The film is a quite rare example of an adaptation aimed at video games, that represents the original story and keeps its major events, plots and is true to what it is supposed to mean. The plot remained same as the source material's, as well as how the story starts out with a new recruit joining the special forces, with little or no experience. At their first battle both protagonists kill an unusual alien, which causes them to be able to repeat the day or events again and again after they die. 

The film also lives up to the novel's visuals, as they are illustrated, showing how things are supposed to look, from the aliens that they need to defeat, to the guns, machines and suits, to the main character himself. They might not perfectly match the illustrations, the film was still able to capture the key aspects of the visuals.

Fig 2: Novel vs. Film.

As mentioned before, the film is set out as a video game would, where the character starts as inexperienced and possesses little skills in whatever task they need to complete. As they die multiple times, they gain experience in that specific task. As we see in the film, as William dies, he wakes up at a certain point in the story and repeats the day until he dies again and again. We see him slowly realising what is happening and keep acting differently to change what is happening. He continuously gets better at battle and is able to prevent some things from happening, but also keeps dying.

Furthermore, in video games, especially war related ones, the character reaches a level when they need to face the boss and defeat it. When in the film the 'boss' alien is defeated, William wakes up and things have changed, although he is not able to come back to life if he dies. But the humans are able to defeat the aliens and it results in the effect of 'winning the game' or 'completing it'.

List of Illustration:

Figure 1: Poster. [online] At: https://www.heyuguys.com/edge-of-tomorrow-poster/ (Accessed on 23/11/2017)

Figure 2: Novel vs. Film. [online] At: http://thehypedgeek.com/hollywoods-history-with-anime-adaptations/all-you-need-is-kill-and-edge-of-tomorrow/  (Accessed on 23/11/2017)

Toolkit 2: Life Drawing #7

Film Review: Documentary and Mockumentary

Documentary is a non-fiction movie with the purpose to educate and inform the audience about nature, history or cultures and show events about that specific topic it is set on. A mockumentary also is classified as a documentary sub genre, but its purpose is to mock documentaries or doing the same thing as documentaries, only in a comical/humorous way.

Fig 1: Poster.

Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's What We Do In The Shadows (2014) is a mocumentary film, that follows the everyday life of 4 vampire flatmates, as they go along with their days. The vampires are Viago, Vladislav, Deacon and Petyr, who share a flat in nowadays New Zealand. The most of the film just shows them living their life, hanging out or trying to get into nightclubs and luring people into their house to feed on them. But lots of things change when a human 'who they originally targeted as prey, is turned into a vampire by Petyr. Now he is a new member of the flatmates, and he often brings along his human friend Stu.

The film is set out as a documentary film, that follows a specific person or group of people around with a camera, where they show what they do in their everyday life. But instead of some celebrities or somewhat extraordinary people, we are presented with clearly fictional creatures, as the few vampires show the crew and therefore the audience around the house and talk to the camera as if they were answering the questions on an interview.

It is rather a comedic factor to watch and follow these vampires as they try to get into nightclubs, but are always rejected. Knowing that they are some supernatural creatures who can manipulate, levitate, and transform, it just becomes much more entertaining seeing them have a house meeting about such an ordinary thing, such as doing the dishes, (which was not done by the 'young' two-hundred-years old vampire for five years). Or one of them laying newspaper down to protect the couch from mess when he is about to kill a person.

As often seen in these type of person centred documentaries, they have voice overs of what was happening at specific events and their feelings about and towards them. As for example, we know that not all of them are very happy about Nick joining them as a new vampire, as he is supposed to keep it as a secret, but he keeps talking about it openly; which is clearly stated by another vampire that it is forbidden to do and he is not happy about the newcomer. While Stu, who is very much still a human, and is not supposed to even know about vampires is allowed to hang out with them; as  explained by many characters during voice overs, Stu is  very liked and they are happy that he is around.

Fig 2:  The vampires talk about Stu, as if in an interview.

Furthermore, the camera does look like it is often hand held, like in most of these type of documentaries and the lighting does appear to be often created by one light source that was following them around (with the crew). When the vampires are met with a pack of werewolves they are shown to have tension between them, and as the bunch of men turn into werewolves, the camera seems to move as if a person was running away as well, or  the camera is moving too fast as it is shaken, blurring sometimes what was happening.

List of Illustration

Figure 1: Poster. (online) At: http://chriscrespo.com/review-what-we-do-in-the-shadows/ (Accessed on 16/11/2017)
Figure 2: The vampires talk about Stu, as if in an interview. [online gif] At: https://giphy.com/gifs/what-we-do-in-the-shadows-iIQ9Uqx9H8KrK (Accessed on 16/11/2017)

Toolkit 2: Character Design - Week 6: Props & Sidekicks

Toolkit 2: Autodesk Maya - 5 Weight Lifting Animation IV.

Film Review: Quality (Exploitation Cinema) - Mad Max: Fury Road

An exploitation film is a movie that intends to attract audience and gain huge amount of money because of it. These movies tend to use elements that are popular at the given time and therefore bringing bigger audience to watch it. Most of these movies have a poor quality and low budget, which is why they try to lure in more people. These movies often are considered to be B-movies and the factors that make them exploitation is showing things such as sex/nudity, violence, monsters, disasters etc.

Fig 1: Poster.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) is the forth instalment of the Mad Max series, made in Australia. The film is set in a post-apocalyptic world where there is no water (at least people cannot access it) and the people are lead by Immortan Joe and his army or War Boys. Max is a survivor of a nuclear holocaust, who gets captured and is used as a blood bag, until he manages to get away, meeting Furiosa and aiding her to escape and find the place she is looking for.

Keeping up with a popular trend, one of the leading roles is a female heroine, Furiosa, a very strong character. She is the part of Immortan Joe's army, which is as seen hardly have or doesn't have a female member at all. She helps the five wives to escape from Joe and get away from the horrible place the movie is set in. Although we expect Max to be the protagonist, we later discover he is only a support, and Furiosa is the leading character, as Max does not have a set of goal, while Furiosa has one and she acts on it too.

Also, the five wives are barely covered, beautiful young women, who look different from one another (clearly targeting different preferences of the audience). Their costumes are not exactly supposed to cover much up, therefore we can see a lot of their bodies. However, for other audience preferences and interest purpose, the War Boys are muscular half naked young males. 

Fig 2: The five wives.

The film not necessarily has a complex plot, as they travel from one place to another, and than back to where they started at. But the violence, apocalyptic environment and war themes grab the attention. The soldiers do not appear in combat suits and the vehicles aren't military vehicles either, such as tanks, but rather heavily armed trucks/cars with various unique and intimidating weaponry. The chase is very intense and show great amount of danger and no fear of death. The film also contains gore, torture and body horror, as Max is taken into the War Boy's base and is chained up, tattooed and branded. There is also countless amount of deaths, but one of the most violent and gruesome is Immortan Joe's death which shows his body modification being ripped of, instantly killing him.

Fig 3: One of the cars.

List of Illustration:

Figure 1: Poster. [online] At: http://madmax.wikia.com/wiki/Mad_Max:_Fury_Road (Accessed on 09/11/2017)

Figure 2: The five wives. [online] At: http://madmax.wikia.com/wiki/Immortan_Joe%27s_Wives (Accessed on 09/11/2017)

Figure 3: One of the cars. [online] At: https://www.scifidesign.com/2015/05/05/the-vehicles-from-mad-max-fury-road/ (Accessed on 09/11/2017)

Toolkit 2: Life Drawing #5 - 6

Toolkit 2: Character Design - Week 5: Facial Language